Manager, API Platform Engineering

UFCU; Austin (TX); Hybrid; USD 120,000 - 160,000; Full time

Job summary

University Federal Credit Union (UFCU) is looking for a Manager, API Platform Engineering to oversee a technical team responsible for delivering enterprise services. This hybrid role includes hands-on leadership and accountability for architecture, operations, and team management.

The ideal candidate will have over 5 years of experience in engineering leadership, with a strong background in API development and cloud services, specifically with C#/.NET, Kubernetes, and Azure.

Qualifications

• 5+ years leading engineering teams with delivery accountability.
• Experience delivering microservices and deploying to Kubernetes.
• Proven experience with enterprise APIs in production.

Responsibilities

• Lead an engineering team delivering enterprise services and APIs.
• Own the API platform roadmap and governance.
• Manage delivery execution and team operations.

Skills

API engineering best practices

C#/.NET

Microservices architecture

Leadership capability

Agile methodologies

Tools

MuleSoft Anypoint Platform

Kubernetes

Azure

Job description

Job Summary

University Federal Credit Union (UFCU) is seeking a Manager, API Platform Engineering to lead a technical team to deliver UFCU’s enterprise service layer—a portfolio of APIs, integrations/orchestrations, and enterprise microservices used by internally developed applications, AI initiatives, and approved third‑party vendors/partners. Reporting to the Director of Platform Engineering, this is a hands‑on, “player‑coach” technical leadership role that blends people management with architecture accountability. You will be responsible for architecture reviews and sign‑off, platform governance, delivery execution, and 24/7 operational readiness.

Your Team Includes

• API & Integration development on the MuleSoft Anypoint Platform: API development, integration patterns, orchestration, policy enforcement, and runtime operations.
• Enterprise Microservices (Kubernetes/Azure): microservices deployed to Kubernetes (AKS preferred) using Azure cloud services and enterprise engineering standards.

This role supports a hybrid work model with 2–3 days per week on‑site at the UFCU Plaza building and manager a core team of 5–7 FTE’s, scaling with contractor resources as needed.

Essential Functions

• Lead an engineering team consisting of API/Integration and Microservices resources delivering reliable, secure, reusable enterprise services and APIs.
• Provide hands‑on technical leadership including:
  • Architecture reviews, technical design guidance, and engineering sign‑off for APIs, integrations, and microservices
  • Establishing and maintaining reference architectures and engineering standards
• Own the API platform roadmap and governance, including:
  • API design standards, documentation (e.g., OpenAPI), versioning, lifecycle management, and deprecation policies
  • Consistent patterns for error handling, idempotency, resiliency, and backward compatibility
• Guide MuleSoft Anypoint Platform delivery and operations, including:
  • API lifecycle management, policy enforcement, reusable assets, orchestration patterns, and runtime monitoring
  • Performance tuning, release readiness, and operational stability
• Lead enterprise microservices engineering using C#/.NET, Kubernetes, and Azure, including:
  • Service boundaries and domain alignment, contract‑first/service‑first approaches
  • CI/CD, automated testing strategies, and secure SDLC quality gates
  • Observability practices: metrics, logs, distributed tracing, dashboards, and alerts
• Ensure production reliability and operational excellence by:
  • Establishing incident response practices, runbooks, post‑incident reviews, and problem management
  • Defining and tracking SLAs/SLOs, MTTR, reliability trends, and capacity planning
• Embed security and compliance into engineering practices, partnering with Security/Risk/Compliance to ensure:
  • Secure API and service patterns (OAuth2/OIDC, mTLS where appropriate, secrets management, encryption at rest/in transit, least privilege)
  • Audit readiness (change management, evidence collection, and operational controls)
• Enable internal teams, AI initiatives, and vendors by delivering:
  • A clear enterprise service catalog and onboarding documentation
  • Supportable integration patterns and certification/testing approaches for vendor consumption
• Manage delivery execution and team operations, including:
  • Agile planning (Scrum/Kanban), prioritization, dependency management, and stakeholder communication
  • Hiring, coaching, performance management, and contractor augmentation management

Knowledge / Skills / Abilities

• Strong leadership capability with a platform mindset—building reusable, well‑governed services that enable other teams.
• Deep knowledge of API engineering best practices, including:
  • RESTful design, versioning strategies, lifecycle management, security policies, throttling, documentation, and governance
• Hands‑on experience with C#/.NET.
• Solid understanding of integration and orchestration patterns, including synchronous/asynchronous approaches, retries, dead‑letter handling, and resiliency.
• Working expertise in microservices architecture and distributed systems concepts:
  • Service boundaries, reliability patterns (timeouts, circuit breakers), data ownership considerations, performance, and scalability
• Demonstrated ability to perform architecture reviews and provide technical sign‑off without creating delivery bottlenecks.
• Operational discipline and comfort owning production outcomes, including:
  • Incident response leadership, escalation management, postmortems, and continuous improvement
• Practical knowledge of modern engineering practices:
  • CI/CD pipelines, automated testing, code quality gates, security scanning, and deployment strategies
• Strong communication and stakeholder management skills:
  • Ability to translate technical tradeoffs into business impact and align cross‑functional partners
• Preferred domain knowledge:
  • Financial services/credit union/banking technology considerations, risk awareness, and compliance mindset
  • Familiarity with BIAN concepts for capability/service domain alignment and service taxonomy (preferred)

Experience

Minimum Requirements

• 5+ years leading engineering teams (people management, delivery accountability, coaching/development).
• Experience delivering microservices (Java/C#/.NET) and deploying to Kubernetes.
• Proven experience delivering and operating enterprise APIs and/or integration platforms in production environments.
• Experience guiding teams building scalable backend services including CI/CD and operational ownership.
• Demonstrated experience leading architecture reviews and enforcing engineering standards (design patterns, security, reliability).
• Experience integrating with enterprise observability tools (e.g., Grafana, Datadog).
• Ability to work hybrid with 2–3 days/week on‑site in the Austin, TX area.
• Willingness and ability to lead incident response when necessary.

Preferred Requirements

• Hands‑on experience with MuleSoft Anypoint Platform (e.g., API Manager, Exchange, Runtime Manager, monitoring/alerts, policy management).
• Experience with Azure cloud services supporting APIs/microservices (e.g., identity, secrets management, monitoring, messaging/eventing, data services).
• Experience in financial services or another regulated environment with strong security/compliance expectations.
• Knowledge of BIAN framework and/or capability‑based service domain modeling.
• Experience scaling delivery with a mix of FTE and contractor resources, including vendor/contract management.

Things You Need to Know Before You Apply

Physical Demands

• While performing the duties of this job, the employee is regularly required to sit; use hands to finger, handle or feel; reach with hands and arms; and talk or hear.
• Specific vision abilities required by this job include close vision, distance vision, peripheral vision and ability to adjust focus.
• The employee is frequently required to stand and walk.
• Employee will make extensive use of the telephone requiring the ability to effectively and accurately explain complex information.

Work Environment

• This position is available to work from home for 50% of the time. This schedule may change at UFCU’s discretion and as safety needs dictate.
• This position may involve periodic stressful conditions.
• May occasionally require an adjusted work schedule, overtime, and evening/weekend hours.
• Frequent computer use at a workstation up to two hours at a time.
• The noise level in the work environment is usually moderate.